MY JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

In my standup act, I had a little rant which I kept handy if I ever said anything that elicited audience groans. To quote: “Oh I get it! I make some whimsical remark with a teeny bit of edge to it and I’m the bad guy, but some guy can talk about his dick for an hour, He’s a fucking genius! He’ll get a development deal from Disney halfway through his set! (in the voice of a supposed show biz mogul) ‘Oh, we LOVE that quirky blowjob material! We want you to speak to children!'” The inspiration for that tirade was none other than Joe Rogan. It was only through recent research that I found he actually DID have a development deal from Disney.

What I saw in him was a master of playing the Hollywood Game as good as anyone could play it. The first time I saw him was maybe a year after my favourite comedian possibly of all time, Sam Kinison, had died in a car crash in Nevada. When I walked into the LA Comedy Store, I had to do a double take, as I thought from the volume, the strings of profanities, and the predilection with talking about sex, that maybe Sam had been somehow resurrected, albeit in a more primitive form. I think I even said something in my set later that night how the best break this guy ever got was Sam dying. But unlike Sam, he wasn’t letting recreational drugs cloud his vision of how he could milk whatever controversy he could muster and turn it to an advantage.

His closing bit for a long time was about watching The Discovery Channel and seeing footage of tigers mating, and how it just happened for them and how unlike humans, there weren’t all the hoops that we (men) have to jump through just for those few minutes of ecstasy. There were things I found funny in that bit, even if it wasn’t what I would personally feel comfortable talking about on stage. It was edgy, but what he was saying paled in comparison to how Kinison addressed the same issues. Rogan, however, was taking his notoriety to the mainstream, something Sam always had difficulty with. Rogan was already immersed in a hit TV series, NewsRadio, which he was cast in almost immediately after his first one, Hardball, had been cancelled. The show might have gone longer had its star Phil Hartman not been murdered by his wife. That didn’t deter Rogan either. He got a gig which he still apparently has, as a commentator on The Ultimate Fighting Championship (he himself is a practitioner of martial arts), and for many years was host of “Fear Factor,” from which “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here” took the simple idea of getting celebrities to humble themselves and for example eat kangaroo testicles on camera. “Fear Factor” succeeded by getting normal people to agree to do such things. It was truly amazing/baffling to watch Rogan go from strength to strength to become the global personality he is now.

Even though I was never much of a fan of his standup, I appreciated his commitment to the purity of the art form, no better than when he confronted noted joke thief Carlos Mencia on stage at The Comedy Store in 2007. I was immersed in the UK comedy scene by then, but the footage of the incident was on YouTube for awhile until The Comedy Store demanded it be taken down. I admired Rogan for what he did, as Carlos was still quite popular at the time. I remember calling Carlos at his home in 1997 the day after I heard him doing one of my bits on stage, and he played the innocent game, pretending he wasn’t aware it was my bit. I was able to get a semblance of an apology from him, but Rogan wasn’t going to settle for that. He was relentless, and he didn’t care that the audience had been enjoying Carlos up until the point where Rogan stormed the stage. In the immediate aftermath, Rogan’s agent, who also represented Carlos, decided to drop Rogan. I think he survived that one just fine.

I always got along with him, even though I’m sure he only had passing respect for what I did, and perhaps he didn’t think I respected his act either. I was just trying to make a living, whereas he was trying to conquer the world. He certainly had the self-confidence. I remember the hardest I ever laughed at him was in a mid-2000’s clip from a set I think he was doing at Caroline’s in New York where he was in the middle of his “We just need a blowjob every now and then” tirade, and some female heckler challenged him with “You really suck. How can you have a girlfriend?” “How can I have a girlfriend?” Joe replied, “Well, let me ask you in the audience, how many women in this audience would fuck me right now?” Several women screamed their approval. He then turned to the angry woman and said, “So see, I don’t have any trouble finding a girlfriend!” Sam Kinison would have been proud.

He has his fans here in UK too, even though to my knowledge, he’s never played here. That’s OK, Elvis never did either. I’m sure he’ll come through all the current controversy just fine. I haven’t seen any indication that Spotify is going to rescind that $100 million deal they have with him, despite the N-word controversy, the veteran artists leaving Spotify, and his irresponsible takes on the pandemic and its vaccines. He is the living embodiment of the character of Lonesome Rhodes, as played by Andy Griffith in my favourite film of all time, the 1957 movie “A Face In the Crowd.” The character realises he has the power to shape public opinion, but gets exposed for the sinister person he is, and in one fell swoop his career is over. I don’t think that will happen to Joe Rogan, mostly because he’s a bit too smart. Many see him as some kind of prophet. Amazing how far a few dick jokes can take you.

February 10th, 2022



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